NEW & NOTABLE: OCELOT (FIN) – MÄ VOIN OTTAA SUN IKÄVÄN POIS

NEW & NOTABLE: OCELOT (FIN) – MÄ VOIN OTTAA SUN IKÄVÄN POIS

Last week saw Helsinki avant-garde pop outfit Ocelot release their debut EP Mä voin ottaa sun ikävän pois (loosely translated as What Can I Take Away). The trio centre around the songwriting, piano and idiosyncratic voice of multimedia artist Emilia Pennanen and the EP itself on four tracks penned a number of years ago. About them Pennanen says;

“I started to write these songs with piano and vocals around 2010-2011…. At the time I was in between studying photography and creative writing; more precisely – poetry, so I was in the mood for writing and experimenting with different ways to make music, sing and play piano. Very raw, clangy, angsty and kinda irritatingly fun. Sonically I was interested in creating repetitive powerful piano chords and free flowing melodies with voice”.

In 2016 Pennanen enlisted Satu Salminen on drums and Johanna Järvinen on bass to bring her piano and vocal focused creations to life, first coming to our notice late last year when they released the amazing ‘Hämärä‘ (Twilight), a track that quickly made it into our musical subconscious. It impressed so much that it made our Top 100 track list of 2018. Along with ‘Hämärä’, the EP sports the cautionary and instructive ‘Sä et saa mua’ (You Can’t Get It), the edgy yet sturdy, ‘Ikävä’ (Tedious) and the unrequitedly confessional ‘Sun oon’. Mä voin ottaa sun ikävän pois is out on Soliti Music and is available to buy digitally here.

Read Pennanen’s explanation of and listen to ‘Ikävä below.

“I really wanted the song to play with the idea of playful rhythms and melodies as the lyrics tell a linear story about anxiety and depression. The piano intertwines first with the bass and finally the drums join in, they are all flowing in and out while the vocals jump on the top”.

Tracklist

1. Hämärä
2. Ikävä
3. Sä et saa mua
4. Sun oon

 

Ikävä

Ocelot (FIN)

From the EP, ‘Mä voin ottaa sun ikävän pois’, Soliti Music.

Audio Stream